In-session reflective functioning in psychotherapies for borderline personality disorder: The emotion regulatory role of reflective functioning. Academic Article uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • OBJECTIVE: The capacity for understanding mental states (reflective functioning; RF) is considered essential for self-growth, social learning, and emotion regulation. Impaired RF is thought to play a central role in borderline personality disorder (BPD). We examined whether asking patients to consider mental states in-session has a down-regulatory effect on emotional arousal in treatments for BPD. METHOD: Early-, middle- and late-phase videotaped sessions from a randomized-controlled trial of transference-focused psychotherapy (TFP; n = 30), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT; n = 29), and supportive psychodynamic therapy (SPT; n = 29) were segmented to therapist and patient talk-turns. Therapist talk-turns were rated as asking patients to consider mental state (bids for RF) or not. Patient talk-turns were rated for RF and acoustically encoded for arousal. RESULTS: Bids were twice as common in TFP compared to DBT and SPT. Across treatments, therapist bids for RF predicted better RF, which, in turn, predicted lower emotional arousal. CONCLUSIONS: Asking patients to consider mental states has a down-regulatory effect on patients' arousal in psychotherapies for BPD. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

publication date

  • September 1, 2021

Research

keywords

  • Borderline Personality Disorder
  • Dialectical Behavior Therapy
  • Emotional Regulation

Identity

PubMed Central ID

  • PMC9634511

Scopus Document Identifier

  • 85117519543

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1037/ccp0000674

PubMed ID

  • 34591548

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 89

issue

  • 9